"We Few, We Happy Few, We Band of Brothers." Evolutionary psychologist Andy Thomson analyzes suicide terrorism from the perspective of evolutionary biology. The presentation was part of the Atheist Alliance International convention in D.C. last month.
posted on Oct 13, 2007 - View this thread

Episode one of controversial evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins' new series Enemies of Reason premieres on Channel 4 tonight. Here's a list of topics.
posted on Aug 13, 2007 - View this thread

The night's event featured speakers Daniel C. Dennett, Matt Ridley, Sir John Krebs, Ian McEwan, and -- the man himself -- Richard Dawkins. It was, as you might suspect (based on the title), an event celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of Dawkins' seminal work. If you didn't get a chance to attend, you can still read the full transcript or stream/download the audio of it in MP3 format (many thanks to Helena Cronin, founder/director of Darwin@LSE, for hosting the file). Thanks to 3QD for the link.
posted on Mar 26, 2006 - View this thread

Creationists argue that the complexity of the human eye could not have arrisen by random Darwinian natural selection, since it "must be perfect to work at all". The Nilsson and Pelger computer experiment refutes this with a method of awesome beauty, showing that a human-quality eye is not just possible under Darwinian evolution, but nigh-inevitable. This is from Do Good By Stealth, chapter 3 of River Out of Eden, which is maybe the greatest thing I've ever read.
posted on Dec 10, 2004 - View this thread

The Dawkins FAQ. Interesting Q&A session about evolution, biology, genes, etc with an expert. Dawkins claims no final answer on the "gay gene" or a Darwinian explanation of homosexuality.
posted on Nov 27, 2004 - View this thread

Richard Dawkins discusses religion with a Darwinian outlook. RD: Could religion be a recent phenomenon, sprung up since our genes underwent most of their natural selection? Its ubiquity argues against any simple version of this idea. Nevertheless, there is a version of it that I want to advocate. The propensity that was naturally selected in our ancestors was not religion per se. It had some other benefit, and it only incidentally manifests itself today as religious behavior.
posted on Sep 3, 2004 - View this thread

Does atheism sound too gloomy? Has the word 'freethinker' been co-opted by too many organizations? Some think so and now the world has a new social group: the "Brights." Also of interest is Daniel Dennett's "The Bright Stuff." The official brights website is here.
posted on Jul 14, 2003 - View this thread

The 5th Annual Edge.org Question is: What is your question? Read answers from Brian Greene, Brian Eno, Richard Dawkins, Steven Pinker, Howard Gardner, Daniel Dennett, and, yes, Alan Alda (and many others).
posted on Jan 18, 2002 - View this thread

Reason redux. This does not sound like the "media ideologue" or one-trick publicity hound that some of you tried to portray him. Or is it all just clever posturing?
posted on Jul 7, 2001 - View this thread

A hero for the 21st century. Brilliant or just possessed of plain ol' common sense? In today's world, perhaps having the latter qualifies someone for the former adjective. One has to admire a relatively high profile person who doesn't shy away from telling the truth despite the pressures to hedge and equivocate.
posted on Jun 25, 2001 - View this thread

Memes are past their prime.

Richard Dawkins first coined the term meme towards the end of his 1976 book The Selfish Gene initially as an instructive analogy and a way of illustrating the concept of replicators. Memes were just like genes but they replicated themselves through minds and culture rather than cells and bodies. Of course, the meme, like any good self-replicating idea, caught on and spread like wildfire and has been used to illuminate studies into subjects as diverse as the memetics of music and the memetics of suicide. There is an alternate view however that sees the grand project of memetics as completely misguided.
posted on Jun 12, 2001 - View this thread

A Lament for Douglas Adams by his close friend, Richard Dawkins.
posted on May 14, 2001 - View this thread

Essay by Richard Dawkins (the scientist, not the game show host) on the supposed convergence on science and religion.
posted on Oct 19, 2000 - View this thread